Paula Rouco glared at him.
After a few seconds of confrontation, Severo Laris repressed his anger, released her wrists, turned around and walked out of the bedroom.
He sat down on the couch, calm.
Severo Laris lifts a hand to pinch his brow bone and, from his nightstand drawer, pulls out his cigarette case and a lighter.
Click.
He lights and smokes quietly.
After smoking for a while, the emotions that were about to explode in her chest calmed down.
Paula Rouco leaves the bedroom without looking at the man sitting on the couch and heads for the hall.
Severo Laris put out the cigarette butt in his hand in the ashtray and looked at her with a frown, “Where to?”.
Like a parent checking on a disobedient child.
Paula Rouco didn’t look back, “I’m going home.”
Severo Laris stood up, came striding over, grabbed her by the wrists and pulled her back through the doorway and pressed her against the wall.
Locked in her arms.
The man looked at her, “This is your house.”
“No.”
Severo Laris got angry, but seeing her face, he couldn’t afford to lose his temper with her and said, “Is it your idea to drive a race car, or is it Rouco’s last name?”
“Mine.” In fact, it was his suggestion that he wanted to drive.
Severo Laris’ brow furrowed more in annoyance, “What is it about driving a race car that appeals to you?”
“Exciting.”
“There’s a lot of excitement for everyone.”
Paula Rouco said, “But I love driving a race car.”
Severo Laris gritted his teeth and said yes.
The land in Ansan has been bought anyway, like to drive a race car right, let him drive it.
He’ll have the whole Ansan track fenced and gated.
He can drive it as many times as he wants, as many times as he wants.
Paula Rouco asks, “Can I go now?”
Severo Laris let go of her slightly, his hand did not let go, and he was pulling away when he drew her into his arms and hugged her tightly.
As he held her, he looked at her left wrist, which was reddened from the strangulation.
It was he who had just poked the red for being too violent.
The fingertips, rubbed with heat.
There is a shallow cut on the inside of his slender, alabaster-like left wrist.
Severo Laris’ eyes hurt.
This shallow mark was left by a suicide by cutting his wrist four years ago, I think.
How deep the cut was, four years later, and it hasn’t even faded completely.
Damned if he hadn’t noticed it before.
Severo Laris looked at her indifferent little face and said, “You can drive a race car if you want to in the future, but I have to be present, something like today I don’t want to happen again.”
Paula Rouco, somewhat impatient, pushed him and prepared to leave.
Severo Laris pulled her again.
Paula Rouco was beside herself, “Severo Laris, what else is wrong with you?”.
Severo Laris grabbed her from behind, leaned in, squeezed, grabbed her chin with his long fingers, twisted her neck and kissed her on the lips and then on the cheek.
There was a faint smell of tobacco and she smoked.
The man looked deeply at her and said, “No other man will be able to kiss you in the future.”
“So what if I have kissed you, who are you to me?”
Severo Laris was annoyed by her disinterested tone and frowned with a cold face, “I won’t do anything to you, but I could have killed the man who kissed you.”
“…”
Prepotent, scoundrel.
Severo Laris went to the United States to learn how to do business, but to learn how to threaten people?
“You can’t threaten me, and it’s not so easy for you to touch the people of The Vasconcellos Family. ”
Severo Laris doesn’t retort: “It’s true that it’s not easy, but that doesn’t stop me from wanting to move him.”
“…”
Severo Laris warned her: “Iita, just this once, I have no patience to spare”.
“…”
Paula Rouco reached out her little onion-white hand and pulled it away from his chest, “You should have the self-awareness not to kiss people if you smoke, it’s suffocating.”
Severo Laris was slightly dazed, the gloom under his eyes, gradually dispersing.
He watched her as she walked away, her thin lips slightly curved.
Slowly he begins to pay attention to what she is doing, which is good.
As for cigarettes, he could give them up altogether if she didn’t like them.
He wasn’t much of a smoker himself, he just felt so lonely during those seven years in America that smoking provided him with some solace.
And now he can see her, hug her, kiss her, smoke, it’s possible not to have to smoke at all.
The cell phone, in the pocket of his suit pants, rang.
Severo Laris picks up the phone.
The person on the other end was Angelo and he opened the door, “Meet me, New Martial Arts Boxing Gym.”
With these words, and without waiting for Severo Laris to answer, he hung up the phone.
The other party guessed that he would be at the appointment.
Because, Severo Laris was also looking for him, to settle accounts.
…
Inside the new martial arts gym.
Angelo had already changed into his workout clothes and smiled disdainfully when he saw Severo Laris in a suit shirt and pants.
“Aren’t you afraid I’ll beat you up later? You’d better change your clothes so you don’t say I’m taking advantage of you then.”
Angelo threw the gym clothes at him and Severo Laris tossed them straight aside.
Severo Laris unbuttoned the cuffs of his shirt and pulled them up with ease, exposing a small, strong, slender arm.
He said, “You better give it your all, because I’m not going to give in to you.”
Angelo thought it was comical and laughed mockingly, “I didn’t think you were going to give in to me, Severo Laris, why do you have the nerve to go after Paulita, didn’t you hurt her enough seven years ago?”
Angelo stepped up and delivered a fierce punch to his cheek.
Severo Laris had blood coming out of his mouth and the taste of blood was spreading. He licked the bed of his teeth, his long fingers ripped off his tie and dropped it to the floor, unbuttoning his shirt, his long masculine collarbones visible in the shirt collar, his mature male sex appeal in full view.
“I don’t have to bother her, do you, you take her out to drive a race car and play with her life!”
At the mention of this, Severo Laris became enraged and threw a fist at Angelo’s face, which caused Angelo’s teeth to chafe and go numb for a moment.
And then the battle between the two men fully ignited, and a good fight ensued.
Half an hour later, both parties were hungover.
Angelo, covered in sweat, gritted his teeth and glared angrily at Severo Laris, saying, “Severo Laris, stay away from Paulita!”
Severo Laris sneers, bends down, picks up his tie from the floor and ties it in his hand, his shirt collar slightly open, his face handsome and bruised, but as masculine as can be.
“In what capacity do you order me to stay away from her? Have I no right, least of all you, to agree to go out with you, or to love you, from beginning to end? You are but a stranger.”
Outsiders.
That’s something Angelo can’t stand.
As Severo Laris pinched his tie and turned to leave, Angelo licked the blood from the corner of his lips and looked back at him, “Severo Laris, you dare bet with me?”
Severo Laris didn’t turn around, his thin lips curved slightly with some disdain, “You know what I’m better at?”.
Angelo frowned slightly, “You dare?”.
“A bet, I’ve never lost.”
In countless business battles, he rises above the bones and wreckage with a bitter intent to kill.
During these seven years, he was fearless and invincible.
Angelo hooked his lips and smiled a wicked, feral grin, “Don’t talk so early. We’ll bet on Paulita’s favorite sport, racing, dare you?”
Severo Laris’ thin lips spat, “The bet.”
“If you lose, leave Paulita and don’t bother her again. If I lose, I will not intrude between you in the future.”
Severo Laris turned, with a cold, firm look, and said, “That’s not enough. If you lose, don’t think of her again for half a second. Not even as a so-called friend, not even as family.”
Angelo let out a cold laugh and looked at Severo Laris with a slightly provocative look, “Deal.”